I like the idea of transfering straight to portable hard disk. It's hard to find this information by word of mouth. every body I talk to about my project can't understand why I want to shoot film in the first place.

I like the idea of transfering straight to portable hard disk. It's hard to find this information by word of mouth. every body I talk to about my project can't understand why I want to shoot film in the first place.

I was referring to this comment you made...Why would so many people not understand?

Ah, whenever I talk to someone about shooting this music video everyone always asks: "so what are you shooting it with?" I tell them 16mm. the usual reply is: "why are you shooting film when you can just shoot it HD and make it look like film". or "why not mini DV it's so much cheaper". but that is the mindset of those people that think that modern video is a replacement for film. few people think of video and film as two completely different mediums, which they are.anyway it seems so silly when people are always trying everything in the book to make video look like film, including expensive software. It's really not expensive to shoot 16mm if your going straight to video from the negative. don't get me wrong, I don't dislike video. but each format has it's uses. some projects should be shot on video and some should be shot on film. in my opinion, music videos just look wierd when they are shot on video.

It's really not expensive to shoot 16mm if your going straight to video

It really depends what type of video you are comparing it to. HD/Super 16 costs are very similar up to a point, but S16 is much more expensive than DV

Gah. This is simply not true. It's dozens of times more. I've done both, I know.

It's not dozens of times more. If you look at S16 with a comparable video technology, HD, film can actually work out cheaper, if you are not shooting high volumes. I did comparison costings last year of S16 vs. HD, and film was cheaper unless you planned on shooting more than 10 400' rolls. This doesn't mean much in the world of drama, but for a music video it is significant.

My comparison is based on standard def, which, let's face it, is all most of us are ever going to end up on. The cost to get to that same DVCAM tape for your student or independent project is somewhere between ten and thirty times greater on 16.

My comparison is based on standard def, which, let's face it, is all most of us are ever going to end up on. The cost to get to that same DVCAM tape for your student or independent project is somewhere between ten and thirty times greater on 16.

Phil

So film ends up being 10-30 percent of the budget whereas DV-CAM will be 2 percent. I still see another 70% that you aren't accounting for. Factor the tendency to shoot A LOT MORE with DV-CAM that generally requires more editing time.

Once again, you have two disparate situations that should not be compared using strictly a dollar to dollar equation. Video acquisition makes sense when live, unscripted dialogue is being used, Film can still work really well when an actual shooting script truly exists.

I'm basing this on a production I have coming up. It's an independent short, two days. Cost to shoot it on video, with favours, is well under £1000. Even playing devil's advocate, It wouldn't be possible to shoot it on 16 for less than about £10,000, not even including the extra crew that would be required.

I can't resist jumping in here, to note that it's kind of pointless to talk about the cost differences between S16 and HD or SD video without thinking about the style of production you're doing, and what skills the crew possesses.

We typically shoot S16, but we've been doing a lot of interviews for industrial projects lately, on DV. We've found that the choice of medium really doesn't change our crew at all for these low-budget projects. If we're shooting film, one of the crew loads. If we're shooting video, that same guy spends a lot more time trying to reduce lighting contrast. But the total crew cost is about the same.

On a recent low-budget commercial, we found that for that production (a one-day shoot), shooting S16 pushed the budget up 10% more than shooting video. That was based on 1600 feet of film, plus processing and transfer.

I think both media are great tools. For a lot of impromptu work, it seems easier and quicker to me to get good results on film (because of the latitude), and a S16 kit can be just as light and portable as video. For long interviews, I love the fact that I can roll tape for hours.

Hah! Our typical crew consists of me (director/writer/editor/dolly grip/loader/first AD/first AC), tom (DP/camera operator/stills/gaffer/stunt driver) plus a skilled grip, makeup, sound, and PAs. So without getting into numbers, we should be well paid!

Seriously, on our productions, we pay the same rate to the crew whether we're shooting film or video. There's a slight premium for DAT rental if we're shooting film, but that's about it. The cost of the kits seem pretty close (HD a bit more expensive than S16). So that really leaves you with film/lab/telecine, which is offset by the time spent color correcting video to look more like... you guessed it!

Another thought: could it be that our budget disparities are coming, at least partially, from being more comfortable in one medium or another? For example, let's say I can rent an F900 package for $2500/day, plus I need a video engineer on set? My first thought is, wow, I'll just use my own S16 camera and spend $2500 on film and transfer (a typical figure for one of our low-budget spots).